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Wednesday, June 9, 2010

What's in the box? Plus an easy tofu curry.

It's Wednesday - that means box day! We pick up our Full Belly Farm CSA box at an undisclosed location in East Sacramento (it involves a back alley - sshhh!) and plan our meals for the next week. Here's what we'll be eating:

I really love the spicy leaves. They play nicely with cheese (ricotta and saltier cheeses) and also make a mean alternative pesto. And who doesn't love a great arugula salad?

New potatoes:

Last week, our potatoes were purple. These are little white waxy potatoes. Do we have a potato salad in our future?

Ruby chard:

This evening I spent some time looking for new chard recipes, and now I have some creative new ideas.

Crisp, fresh parsley:

And we got two heads of lettuce, including an iceberg:

Tonight, we used the sugar snap peas (you can see them on the right-hand side in the group picture at the top). I made a coconut curry that uses an Indian-style dried curry powder instead of a Thai curry paste. The original recipe comes from Heidi Swanson's 101 Cookbooks, but I made a number of tweaks.

Here's what I did: Sliced and patted dry a block of tofu and pan fried over medium heat for a total of 11 minutes, flipping about half-way through. Removed the tofu from the pan and kept the heat at medium. Added 1/2 a cup of coconut milk (I use light) and about 2 tablespoons of curry powder (I like a slightly spicy, Madras-style curry that I get from the Sacramento Food Co-op in the bulk section) and 1/2 teaspoon sea salt and whisked to incorporate. Added 1 small chopped red onion (from the box!) and 1 garlic clove and simmered for about 2 minutes. Stirred in another 1/2 cup coconut milk, plus 1/3 cup water, and the reserved tofu. Simmered until the sauce thickened a bit, probably about 5 minutes. Added sugar snap peas, about 3/4 pound, and covered the pan. Cooked for about 7 minutes (my peas took a while to cook - next time I would steam them first). Served over rice, garnished with roasted cashews on top. A tasty quick dinner for a weeknight!